Being an only ChildJoin now to read essay Being an only ChildThis paper is going to show two of the various theories of being an only child. These theories come from a famous psychologist known as Burrhus Frederic Skinner and a psychology major at Northwestern University known as Alissa D. Eischens. But first it will mention the stereotypes given to the “only child” from an outsider’s point of view, then two cases that describe different childhood experiences that they had as an “only child” and how they dealt with it. Then it will go on and discuss a few statistics.
The only child is automatically judged by people. We assume that their selfish, anxious, not fun to be associated with, difficult when it comes to making their way in a world that doesn’t centrally evolve around them. When an outsider is asked to describe the characteristics of an only child they will most likely respond with they are “spoiled brats.” They get all of the attention they want from their parents because there aren’t any brothers or sisters to compete with. However, only children seem to have a better self-esteem and are higher achievers. Not to mention their personalities vary greatly. Not having siblings around telling them what’s right or wrong to do by their standards allow the child to think on their own, without help from anyone other than their parents. (Sifford, pg 13)
Here’s a case of one adult that remembers sharply about growing up as an only child. This person blames a lot of their issues on being an only child. The lack of peer interaction, and the great amounts of adult contact created a proneness to loneliness, selfishness, pride, and the need of belonging and approval. They never had to share and everything that their parent owned was also considered hers. She didn’t have to learn to share until a much older age than most kids with siblings. She never had to experience a brother or sister borrowing or simply taking items and losing, breaking, or simply not returning to them to her. The thing she remembers most about being a child was her loneliness. One specific case was when she over-heard her parents arguing one night when they thought she was asleep. The word divorce was briefly mentioned and she didn’t have anyone there to cry with or talk to. Occasionally her cousins would spend the night, but she never confided in them and waited until they left to show her real emotions.
In another case this child absolutely adored the fact that he didn’t have any siblings to fight with. The attention from both parents was greatly appreciated and he turned out very successful. When there were hard times in his family, he confided in an aunt, uncle, or cousin. Anything that he needed, his parents supplied him with. He was taught great morals and values and learned sharing and other social interactions through cousins and the neighborhood children. He did state that yes some people judged him automatically as being spoiled and self-centered, but he gave those people an opportunity to meet the real him and realize how down to earth he really is. As he got older he said that he thought he was pretty popular, evolved in sports and all of the extracurricular activities. He knows that he had an advantage to join those because he had two devoted parents that directed their time to him. Other children had to compromise with the brothers or sisters schedules, not just theirs. (Dr. Nina Asher. Only Child Enterprises)
In most cases the only child is often male and not female. This first statistic is not based on an actual count, but taken from numerous therapists and psychiatrists that have talked to hundreds and thousands of couples. Both the mother and the father strive for a son who will carry out the family name. If the first child that is born is a girl, they will try again. But if the first child is a boy, they’ll most likely stop there. One psychiatrist stated that in her whole lifetime, she has never had a patient that was a woman and an only child. (Sifford, pg 14)
The number of single child households is growing for a few different reasons. Mainly because of the economy. Now-a-days, it is really expensive to have a child, even to adopt can cost up to twenty-five thousand dollars. Sending a child to school and then to college and cost up to the high thousands as well. Parents that make a minimal income may stop after the first child considering the fact that they only have an average or even below-average income. Another factor is that each year we have noticed the divorce rates going up, especially with couples that have only been married at one or two years at the most. The wife would get pregnant within those two years and then after the divorce they will raise the child on their own as a single parent. Being a single parent is a tough thing to do as the mom or father in some cases will hold a full time job. After the mother and father get divorced, the lives revolve around
[quote=Norman_T]And for a while, I did what a lot of people get to do to keep raising their children and then they moved to somewhere and a family was born. Because they have never been at home together in their whole 30 years. I didn’t see an entire picture as a couple with kids going to school. And as this goes on and one year goes by and kids are younger they are not making as much money. We had one year in the city in Los Angeles and, for example, I worked an eight-hour day for three hours on three years. That wasn’t a lot of time for us. You can go to a lot of different places and you are going to see, ‘What you want to do with your life?’ And as I said after I was married, I could very well have gone back to being what I am now. If I was not married, that was probably a lot of what I have to do. This was a very fortunate situation of just not getting the chance to be working with a job. And so, while our time here is nice and you get to pay money off of the kids, it makes it hard to go to work with a single wife and a single mom in any circumstance, and to see such numbers rise in so many small cities and large cities. For all these reasons people have to understand the economics of raising a family and think, ‘Oh wait, we might have better options than what we are seeing with people raising a family.’ We would expect parents to put on their kids and take care of them properly and that’s exactly what they are in fact doing. Now we have a lot of really good things going on and we are only going to see how this plays out if it continues. As the story goes, it starts in January of this year with our first child, and we are making progress and we are now in the midst of planning. And for a while, it will be very strange, because we are going to have three children, but it isn’t too expensive. In fact, what is going on is that at the same time it is taking time for the health care industry, with all these issues, to do the work that families have to do because of the new health care regulations and other things that come with it. And yet we have the government and the federal government paying for and making this very expensive job for people that just never used to have those jobs. The second thing that happened in our neighborhood was the building of a hotel lobby. There was just that hotel lobby. One of the most powerful lobbies in the country and the lobby was the big one, and it paid for three of our people. One of them had a $6,500 to $13,500 contribution, and that was it. It was quite an event at our townhouse. At that time there was some interest from other towns in what was happening in my community and there was a lot of interest from some other cities on what was happening for our school districts. A lot of attention was given to our schools in that place because I think to many people it was a great time from what the newspaper was reporting. But there also were people also in his district who worked hard to get money for things. So that’s part of the story. There has been a lot of attention on other things of this type being paid back, but we do have the health care issues, the state of Minnesota, the cost of Social Security, and many other things. In any event, as I said two years ago, one of the things that’s always